Sarah Goldblatt was a staunch advocate of the Afrikaans language of South Africa. Despite learning the language later in life, she devoted herself to her adopted tongue, publishing multiple books in Afrikaans and serving on the editorial board of an Afrikaans newspaper. Trained as a teacher, she also taught the language to students around the country.

Esther Barsel was a lifelong activist, committed to the Liberation struggle in South Africa from her high school days. She sold anti-apartheid newspapers, participated in a hunger strike, and endured three years of imprisonment and hard labor followed by a 20-year banning order, all in the name of ending apartheid in South Africa.

Independent, rebellious, and eccentric, Roza van Gelderen and Hilda Purwitsky, a devoted same-sex couple, represent the “New Woman” who was coming of age in the 1920s, enjoying new freedoms of education, career, and lifestyle. World travelers, collectors, patrons of the arts, journalists, and teachers in Cape Town, South Africa, they dedicated themselves to helping Eastern European immigrant children to adapt to their new lives.